Ella's Academic Progress

Ella has now been out of the orphanage for just over four months and attending Kindergarten for five weeks.  Her academic progress in this time has been immense.  Ella has learned to recognize all letters, upper and lower case, knows the sounds many of the letters make, and can write many of them from memory.  She can count to 30 without assistance and to 100 with just a little help.  She also visually recognizes numbers 0 through 10 and is just beginning to go beyond.  Ella's understanding of time within a single day, a week and an entire year has greatly improved.  Though she doesn't always get them in the right order yet, she now knows that there are days of the week, months of the year, seasons, and parts of each day.

Ella's teacher calls me regularly to update me on her work and behavior at school. Ella has not been on the time out pillow since the second week of Kindergarten and during center time has recently begun branching away from the painting easel to choosing the Discovery Center or i-Pad time.  She has made friends in the classroom and even been invited to her first play date which makes me feel a hundred years old.  She loves working with her ESL teacher and is showing a constant expansion of her English language skills.  Handwriting is a struggle for our little lefty, but she is determined and practices daily.  She's lucky to have a lefty daddy who can help.

She likes drawing on the Kindle and on paper.

Ella wrote her own and her siblings' names
from memory on the Kindle.

Her two favorite words to write.

Ella's greatest academic assets are her desire to learn and her drive to succeed.  Her teacher tells me that when the students are given a choice between completing either of two worksheets, Ella asks for both.  She is requesting extra homework on many days as well, so much so that the teacher is compiling a special math book for her to have here.  Ella knows when she has done a good job and likes to show off her best work for praise.  She was especially proud of this masterpiece which she told me - no kidding - is entitled "Purple Rain" with the circles being windows, the blue being sky and the purple being rain.  She took this drawing in to school to share with her teacher who was gracious enough to hang it on the class art wall.

Ella likes to ask us, "Are you so impressed with me?"  Yes, love, we definitely are.

Doing Somersaults

Craig's employer switched to a different company for medical insurance coverage for 2015, so we were not sure how it would affect therapy services for the kids, in particular Rex.  After submitting a large pre-approval package for him in January and then following up with frequent calls, we finally got word today that Rex has been approved for 40 - yes, that is right - 40 hours of therapy 1:1 per week.  In addition, the insurance is going to cover five hours his therapists can use to assess, plan and make sure the required supervision is in place.  We are beyond grateful and thrilled that Rex will now be working with someone 1:1 for the entire school day and into aftercare for the remainder of this calendar year.  We cannot wait to see how much progress he will make.

He is worth it!

Martenitsi

This afternoon our local Bulgarian community put on a martenitsa workshop.  We dropped in for about an hour and learned some of the easier techniques to make a martenitsa.  Now we're all set around here for Baba Marta Day.  We also enjoyed some Bulgarian pastries.  Yum.

Ideas And Recipes Wanted

We have recently experienced some sleep issues with Emilia.  She has been struggling to go down at night and wakes up 30-90 minutes earlier than we'd like.  We initially attributed the matter to the changes of the move - and that may still play into it - and temporarily and successfully resorted to a small dose of melatonin to help her fall asleep.  However, this strategy did not alleviate the early rising.

Then one night, Emilia stayed up with us a bit later than usual and ravenously shared Craig's evening snack: roasted chicken.  That night, she went to sleep without issues and woke up at a reasonable hour.  Of course, the wheels in our parental heads started turning and we realized that Emilia has been eating a lot in recent weeks and asking for a lot of food, too, especially before 10:00 am.  What if she was hungry going to bed, affecting her ability to fall and stay asleep?  We've experimented and it does appear that giving her a healthy, high calorie snack right before bed basically eliminates the sleep struggles on both ends of the night. Whew - insert relieved wipe of the brow here.

But here's the challenge.  Emilia is allergic to dairy and peanuts. And while her chewing skills have drastically improved, she still eats slowly and avoids hard foods (think pretzels and raw carrots).  We need suggestions for easy to eat, healthy, high calorie bedtime snacks that can fit her dietary restrictions.  If anyone has ideas or recipes for us, please share.

New House - New Rules - New Routines

After purchasing our new home, Craig and I began thinking about ways in which we could improve our lives through better organization, updated rules, and easier routines.  Now that we've been here for a month, some of these things are solidly in place and working well.  Therefore, I thought I'd share a little on this subject over several posts.

One of the most problematic issues in the old house centered on toys as well as arts/crafts and educational supplies.  We wanted the kids to have access, but we did not want these things all over the house all the time and I really wished for a family room that did not look like a daycare center around the clock.  So, we decided to banish the kids' toys into a basement playroom complete with comfy couches, pillows, blankets and hopefully soon a swing.  That room belongs to the kids.  I don't care about the mess, they can leave it however they want.  I don't pick up.  It's 100% a child domain to play and relax.  Meanwhile, I now have a cozy and comparatively well-organized family room that's my favorite space in the house.  It's where we snuggle on the couch, watch TV, read books, and just hang out together.

But there was still the matter of arts/crafts and educational items.  We own a great school cubby storage unit that I bought at a fraction of the original price from a daycare that was closing its infant room. In the old house, it held shoes and outdoor gear.  In our new home, I decided to return it to more of its intended purpose and use it to store all of our educational supplies and some of our arts/crafts.  We have found a perfect spot for the cabinet by our main entry way where it's not in constant sight of the kids, but they know it's there if they want something.  Each bin holds themed activities and is labeled. I just used painter's tape for this purpose rather than anything more permanent and fancy because the contents of the bins is going to change as the kids get older.

Ella and Emilia know that they can only get out one bin at a time and need to return it before choosing a different one.  This has been a huge help in reducing clutter and messes in our home.  It also encourages the girls to focus on one activity and choose thoughtfully what they would like to do.  Ella also often selects a bin to take upstairs into her bedroom during quiet/ nap time, so she has some entertainment while resting.

It may not be the traditional choice for an entry and we're certainly not going to win any interior design awards, but we love how this set-up is working for us at this time.

Farewell To A Sucky Month

Good-bye, January 2015, you won't be missed.  You've been one of the harder months in my life.  You brought with you...

... illness for everyone in our family (strep throat, ear infection, stomach flu, cracked rib, back injury, winter cold)

... a big move that still isn't completed

.... really cold temps

.... jury duty

... all three kids transitioning into new schools

... the winter blues

So, good riddance to you.  This little family is ready for spring!

S'mores Cupcakes

This week there was a carnival at Ella's school and I contributed some homemade goodies for the bake sale.  I decided on this recipe, but did not make my own marshmallow fluff.

The batter was yummy.
I think it will be delicious as a cake topped with fresh berries in summer.

Muffins baked and filled with marshmallow fluff

Iced with a dark chocolate ganache

Topped with a toasted marshmallow

Wrapped up for individual sale

Yummy!